If you’ve been itching to wend yourself to work by way of that urban design wonder known as a footpath, Walk2Work Day is made for you.

Think of Wednesday 11 March as an opportunity to put the built environment into the kind of perspective that only a ‘walked environment’ can provide.

This year will be the seventh year that Living Streets Aotearoa has taken the lead on an event that local body organisations are right behind, as is the Urban Design Forum (UDF).

The UDF’s contribution this year – which may expand in the future – has been to line up people who will host a set of open invitation walks that will draw attention to aspects of the city such as engineering heritage, flora and fauna, social history, and other features often hidden from sight – unless you’re a walker.

Wellington representative of the UDF Brett Gawn says: “urban design is about connecting people to their local place, and to the other people in that place. What better way to combine those experiences and bring an added perspective, than through walking and talking?”

Andy Smith, Living Streets Aotearoa’s Auckland-based president, says it is hard to overestimate the benefits to both mental health and physical health of a good walk to work.

You can commute a kilometre in just 1200 strides says Andy, burning calories as you go. While barring either the impediment of sidestepping overgrown vegetation, or the distraction of your mobile device, you can do so almost as safely as taking the next best thing to work, namely public transport.

In Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown will be leaving her bike behind and leading a walk from Kelburn down to the city, with a free breakfast on offer by the waterfront at Frank Kitts Park.

Other plans for the week in Wellington could be called a walk in the park given it also happens to be in the middle of a particularly action-packed Parks Week.

In a week of happy coincidences, Fran McEwen of Wellington City Council’s Parks, Sport and Recreation team says the opportunity to celebrate green spaces and the joys of walking at the same time will be further capped off by the creative tour de force of the aptly named Park[ing] Day, also on 11 March.

Parking Day is an annual worldwide event where artists, designers, citizens and architects transform metered parking spots into temporary public ‘parks’. Jasmax has grabbed three spots and Athfield Architects one.

See more details of what’s happening for Walk2Work Day around New Zealand tomorrow on the Walk2Work Day Facebook page, the Living Streets Aotearoa website or follow the Living Streets twitterfeed @NZLivingStreets (hashtag #walktowork).

Walk to Work day occurs at different times on the calendar around the world. In Australia, where the event has been a national day for 18 years, people take to the streets in November. And in San Francisco, it’s an annual event in April with a Golden Millipede Award to be won by the workplace with the most commuters walking to work that day.

As an added incentive in Auckland this year Auckland Transport is running a Walk2Work Day photo competition.